


love is a very compound thing

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Dinner, Eating, F/M, Gen, Implied Friends To Lovers, Inhumans (Marvel), Jealousy, Partnership, Platonic Romance, Romantic Gestures, Teasing, Trust Issues, Unresolved Romantic Tension, implied Coulson/Price, implied Daisy/Lincoln, mutual respect and affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5220173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson and Daisy just really like each other.  Somehow, when they like other people that makes it easier to understand.  Title from a browning poem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love is a very compound thing

“I’m not seeing the kind of person who stockpiles Inhumans.”

He gives her a withering glare, and ignores her deflection.

“Lincoln’s a lose canon. Why can’t you admit that?” he asks, leaning forward on his hands against his desk.

“Wow,” she replies, blinking back at him. “Do you even know how you sound?”

“No,” he says quickly, then following after her as she makes her way to the entrance to his office.

“No.”

He pushes his prosthetic hand against the door a little too forcefully, making the slam echo against the walls.

Crossing her arms, she slowly turns towards him, narrowing her eyes.

“How can you trust him more than you trust me?”

“I wonder why I might have reason to doubt your judgement at the moment?” she starts. “Can you think of anything in partic-“

“ _Before_ Price,” he interrupts. And she watches the muscle in his jaw twitch like rapid fire.  “Something happened before.”

“And?” she replies with a raise of her eyebrow.

Some of the anger in his expression dissipates, turns into something else.

“Because he’s Inhuman.”

That catches her off guard.  His hidden meaning: “Because I’m not.”

She sighs and lets her shoulders loosen, looking away from him towards the windows.

“That’s not why I-“

“I know this hasn’t been easy,” he says, trying to start again from a different place. “You didn’t have to shut me out.”

“Phil,” she says, trying. “I didn’t shut you out.  We see each other every day, we work together on the same team.

“Okay, it’s not that,” he shakes his head. “It’s because it’s easier, right?”

“I thought it would be,” she admits, dragging her heel against the floor.

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Lincoln just needs a chance,” she shrugs, meeting his eyes. “I feel like with the right people around him…He wants to do good.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Do you?” she says, challenge in her voice and tilt to her head.

He knows she’s not talking about Lincoln now.

“I want to.”

“Good,” she nods. “Because since I had to give Roz the grand tour, I thought you might like to return the favor.”

“What?” he answers, tension immediately filling his voice.

“Show him around.  Let him know what an open-minded individual you are.”

He sets his jaw and then rolls his eyes.

“And how mature.”

 

###

 

“Look, you don’t have to pretend,” Lincoln says flatly at him, when they’re stopped at the weapons range.

“Daisy asked me to show you around. I’m doing that.”

“ _For Daisy_. I know you don’t like me,” Lincoln says, looking at little put out by the whole thing.

“Why wouldn’t I like you, Mr. Campbell?” he asks, smiling just so.

“’Cause you never call me by my first name,” Lincoln says, shoving his hands in his pockets, starting to walk again.

“That’s because I don’t really know you,” Coulson replies, moving to catch up to him.

“What do you want to know?”

“Why didn’t you want to come with Daisy when she tried to help you?”

“See?” Lincoln chuckles. “You don’t want to know about me.  You want to know how I feel about _your girl_.”

“She’s not my girl,” Coulson says, stopping in the middle of the hall.

“No, but she’s important to you,” Lincoln says, looking around to see who’s about. “You need her.”

“You’ve gotten a good look at our operations,” Coulson said, waving his hand. “You might guess why that is.”

“Help you deal with those pesky Inhumans,” Lincoln adds.

“That’s not true,” he replies, his eyebrows knotting together.

“If she wasn’t one,” Lincoln says, stepping closer to him. “ _Daisy_.  Would you even care?”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Coulson answers, widening his eyes.

“Daisy does.  She seems to think you’re alright.”

“And where does that leave you?”

“Me?  I’m not so sure.”

 

###

 

“It’s fine.  He just hates me.”

“It’s not about you,” she says, resting her hands on his shoulders, watching him flip through the reports on the pad in his lap.

“You’re just…Ultimate SHIELD Guy to him,” she explains.

“Is that a thing?” he says, looking up at her standing over his shoulder.  “Did he actually call me that?”

“Maybe.”

She grips his shoulders a little. “Man, you’re tense.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You should get Roz to hire someone else to give you a massage.”

He grumbles a little under his breath, and instead she digs her thumb into a knot as he hisses under her touch.

“Careful.”

“Sorry,” she says, then notices the list of reports coming up in his queue.

“There’s an update for Joey there,” she prompts, leaning her arm across his shoulder to touch the pad.

“Guess I’m reading that report now,” he says dryly.

“It’s good news,” she smiles resting her hands on the back of his chair. “You like that sort of thing, right?”

“Especially lately,” he says, then reaches back for her wrist. “Why don’t you come sit down for a second, instead of hovering?”

She follows his leading and circles around to sit in the chair beside him, sees him look at her briefly out of the corner of his eye.

“Tell me about Joey.”

###

 

“Not all Inhumans are like you.”

“Not all Inhumans are SHIELD.”

“If you think that’s what’s holding you back-“ he says, not wanting to have to actually say it.

He leans back against the park bench, watching his breath float in the cold.

“I was thinking if it were a black ops team,” she says, her finger pressing against her lips as she turns to him to gauge his reaction.

“Unofficial SHIELD?”

“Not official anything,” she replies, her eyes seeming hopeful.  “These people are used to being hunted by quasi-government organizations. We _are_ what they’re afraid of.”

“I see.”

“I know you want to help these people,” she says, putting her hand on his arm. “This is why you joined SHIELD.”

“I was trying to protect people against the weirder world.”

“You are the weirder world. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

He smiles at her, moves the fingers on his robot hand with a small smirk.

“And does this mean you walk away?” he asks, his expression clouding for a moment, like he’d prepared himself for something like this.

“No, it’s a secret team,” she said, shrugging against the damp air. “Just like we originally planned.  But even from SHIELD.”

“What can I do to help?” he asks.

She scoots closer to him.

“How do you feel about being a consultant?”

 

###

 

“What’s all of this for?” she asks, as he pulls out the chair for her.

“I thought it might be nice to celebrate,” he said, taking his seat across from her.

Now that the Registration Act has been repealed. Thanks to a lot of work dealing with bureaucracy and political games and the public tide turned by people making sacrifices.

And they still managed to survive.  Somehow.

“Just the two of us?” she mentions, sitting back as the waiter arrives to hand them menus.

“I think you’re the only person I invited,” he says, trying to be a bit smooth and starts looking over the wine list.

“I should be buying you dinner,” she smiles fondly, putting down her menu for a moment to reach for his hand.

“Do you already know what you want?” he asks, trying to not get completely thrown off by the tenderness in her expression.

“I’m very sure.”

He meets her eyes and holds them for a long moment before closing his menu as the waiter arrives with wine that they never ordered.

She looks at him curiously.

“And the clam and pumpkin curry,” he says.

“Oooh, this _is_ about trust,” she laughs, looking at the waiter.

“And some of that hand-made mozzarella,” he adds.

She almost looks like she’s sighing in relief.

“This place was a little out of the way,” he said. “But I think it’s worth it.”

“I like it, she says, looking around at the old house. It seems like someone’s home.”

“It’s _very_ good,” he says persuasively.

“Sounds like you’ve been here before,” she answers, as she lifts her glass to his.

“But, my first time with you.” 

 

 

 


End file.
